


Toasted Cheese

by Wordwitch



Series: The Hunting Of The Snark [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, POV Animal, POV Hermione Granger, POV Neville Longbottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 20:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15980087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordwitch/pseuds/Wordwitch
Summary: ... but the worst of it was,He had wholly forgotten his name....His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"And his enemies "Toasted Cheese."





	1. Fit the First

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this story, the Longbottom family seat is in North Yorkshire.

"Bottoms up, boy!" and Uncle Algie went roaring away with laughter as Neville scooted off the far side of his bed, blanket and sheet forcibly following his tangled foot. Heart racing, he waited to see if anything went off on a time-delay - that was his uncle's favorite warning for something life-threatening about to be done to find out whether Neville had any more magic than the LAST time.

It was also his favorite way to wake Neville from a sound sleep.

It was also the Longbottom war cry. Well, without the "boy" part. Uncle Algie was Neville's dad's uncle, and Neville could only conclude that his ancestors were right prats, one and all.

Neville crawled carefully to the end of his bed and scanned the floor as far as he could see. Nothing visible. He looked up as far as his neck would allow, then rolled over to see whether anything was waiting poised on the ceiling.

Uncle Algie liked leaving traps. He also liked leaving nothing at all, just to make Neville more nervous.

It had never once occurred to Algernon Longbottom or to his nephew to question the fairness of this.

* * *

Breakfast was the normal torment. Neville tried to dodge any hexes or jinxes that might come his way from his uncle at the south end of the polished table, tried to answer politely any questions or statements from his Gran at the north end, and used the tattered remnants of his attention to eat without getting anything on his travelling robes. Toast worked. Butter or jam did not. Oatmeal was right out.

"Grandson, remember that you are a Longbottom and the son of heroes."

Neville could see his Gran _Not Sighing In Disgust_ , as Purebloods with manners did not do such things.

"I will not ask that you make us proud. I will only state that you have received your _Letter_ " (the Letter was always capitalized) "and that you will act accordingly."

Everyone at the table was well aware that the arrival of the Letter had been nearly unexpected.

Three of the Cousins had had him answering to "Hey, squib!" by his third birthday.

* * *

The Floo to King's Crossing was no more disorienting than any between one House and another, and somehow clinging to his father's trunk allowed him to keep his feet. But the sheer physical _noise_ of the platform nearly made him pass out.  He was only saved from that indignity by one worse.

"Here, Nevvie!" Uncle Algie thrust something moist and wriggling into his face, chortling as always in using the same abbreviation for Neville and for Nephew.

"It's a toad for you to take with you! Call him Trevor - that'll give you a bit of Welsh mystique t'offset our plain Yorkshire ways!"

Neville let go of his trunk to take the slippery creature in both hands, understanding instantly that keeping and caring for it ... _him_ was another test of his nonexistent competence. His Gran grabbed the swaying trunk with a familial sniff at his clumsiness, and chivvied Uncle Algie into putting the trunk on the train for him.

Neville worried about the toad in his hands. He couldn't shake hands goodbye with his uncle. His goodbye kiss from his Gran threatened the poor thing with being squished. And Neville was certain that he had been poisoned by the toad's skin, and was expected to use accidental magic to recover.

Trevor certainly distracted him from the entire process of leaving his whole known world behind.

Neville kept a sharp eye on the toad in his hands, wiggle as he might, right up to the point that the train juddered into motion. As Neville frantically shoved himself back into the corner so as not to slide onto the floor, Trevor made a break for it.

The three boys who had somehow appeared in the train compartment with him fell about laughing, of course, so thoroughly expected that he barely noticed it as he stumbled against the swaying of the train and out through the door.

Once in the hallway, Neville was stymied. Was he supposed to call for the toad? But it had only just been named!

In an ecstasy of wholly expected misery, Neville stood in the middle of the clattering hallway, looking wildly about him for a small swift creature the exact colors of the floor.

* * *

Hermione had never been on a train before, but she had read everything she could find on them, and was gleefully matching the current reality to the written description. To her delighted satisfaction, everything _did_ match.

She had always had a hard time keeping the contents of her head behind her teeth, but within a very few minutes of sitting down in her compartment, her Sense of the children around her was one of dismay and ... revulsion? Anger? So she smiled tightly at them all, and left to take a tour of the train.

So. Many. People. And they were all children, with children's unregulated thoughts, their wild emotional swings, completely unlike the tame order of the minds of the adults she'd grown up with.

Just as her Sense-i had speculated, she was actually able to sort out entire compartments by year - not accurately of _course_ , since she had no idea which years had which characteristics, but enough to tell that it was mostly years together. She hopped a little, grinning like mad.

And then ahead of her was a brown swirl of fixed despair, far too old a despair for any student. But as she approached, sight told her that was exactly who was there.

And he was her age.

And he had that muted bell-tone underneath every other Sense that her Sense-i had taught her to recognize as _Sentinel_.

And as his tragic brown eyes came around to meet her own, she thought, "I can help him. And he will let me."

* * *

Utterly still, half in and half out of the shadow toward the end of the car, the wild toad that had been unceremoniously yanked from his pool-side and leaf-filled hollow only that very morning watched appraisingly. Like any resident of a Manor as ancient and as unrelentingly magical as the Longbottom Manor, this Toad had far more capacity for formal thought than any similar of his species from a non-magical region of the Land. Had he been asked, he would have denied both name and the need for one; Toads generally consider their world in terms of You, and Me, and JumpNow!

But the rude JumpNow! of this morning had meant its rudeness both toward the Toad and toward this tadpole. And although the tadpole had been dangerous, the Toad considered that it had not meant to be. The tadpole's mist tasted of fear and of sorrow. And that was enough to keep watch instead of completing a highly dangerous and probably unnecessary JumpNow!

The new one did not taste of JumpNow! either. Its mist was curious, and helpful, and feels-with/happy.

This merited attention.


	2. Fit the Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I said it in Hebrew—I said it in Dutch—  
> I said it in German and Greek:  
> But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much)  
> That English is what you speak!"

"What has happened?" Hermione kept her voice soft, with the undertones of willing-to-help that she had had to practice so hard to override her normal judgement-of-incompetence. Sense-i had finally stung her with his own judgement-of-incompetence before she had gotten it right.

And she got it right this time: the young Sentinel groaned "I've lost my toad. I only just got him and I lost him."

Well now.

"Were any compartment doors open when you came out?" The boy shook his head. "What colors is he?"

"Tan and brown and orange." They both looked at the carpet in dismay. Hermione took a deep breath.

"You'll have to find him by outline, then. First check to make sure he's still in the hall."

"How?" He responded, but trustingly.

"Sniff for that toady smell. He should be the only source."

"Hey!" The boy grinned. "I _can_ smell him!" Hermione grinned back at him.

"Very good job! Okay, so we know he's in the hall. And we know that he's not in the middle of the hall, because toads have a decent sense of self-preservation. So let your eyes go a little out of focus, start at the far corner, and slowly scan one side of the hall -"

"There he is!" The boy scrambled down the hall a way, slid to his knees, and then gently held his hand out.

Hermione didn't see the toad but that was hardly surprising. What did surprise her was that, after a minute or two, a toad scrambled up onto the boy's hand. The boy cupped his other hand over top, and levered himself up, muttering to the amphibian.

The brown swirl of him lightened to a dull gold: much better. With a charmingly disbelieving grin, he said, "Neville Longbottom of Longbottom Manor is in your debt. M-May I know your name?"

"I am Hermione Granger, and I'm glad I could help. May I see your toad?"

Neville Longbottom held his hand out, and the toad blinked at her with surprisingly assessing eyes.

"He's-" Hermione wiggled her fingers "slimy. Is he supposed to be slimy?"

The toad looked back up at Neville, who regarded him unhappily.

"Well, I'm sure we shouldn't dry him off." Hermione shook her head in agreement. "I'm also sure that it means that Uncle Algie picked him up off the ground just before we got here." He pressed his lips together in unconscious mimicry of his Gran's most disapproving look. "I can only hope he'll be all right until we get to Hogwarts."

The toad - Trevor, evidently - looked back at Hermione. To her astonishment, he had a Sense - calculating and disapproving and protective, which aside from being held by a toad at all, seemed unlikely for a captive toad. Then he deliberately turned around, leapt for Neville, and scrambled up onto his shoulder, where he made himself comfortable.

Hermione and Neville looked at him, and looked at each other, and shrugged in matching disbelief.

* * *

"Good on ya, mate!" exclaimed a straw-haired boy as Neville showed Miss Granger into his compartment.  "I didn't think you'd get it back at all!"

Neville couldn't help but grin. "Only with the help of Miss Hermione Granger," he said, bowing her into a seat on the bench. "And I am Neville Longbottom; this is my toad, Trevor."

"I'm Seamus Finnegan," the other said, waving.

"Trevor Boot," said a husky boy with a musical voice and a wry grin at the toad, "maybe call me Terry instead," and met with laughs all around .

"Dean Thomas," said the third. "Do you already have a habitat for him, or are you just hoping for the best?"

Neville and Miss Granger looked at each other, and Neville answered "Hoping for the best, actually, since I'd no idea he was coming till the last minute."

" _Hogwarts: a History_ says that accommodations are made for familiars and for pets with reasonable needs," Hermione chimed in. "But as he's a wild toad, if worse comes to worst there may be some resources for him on the grounds near the lake."

Trevor suddenly uttered a sound like the plucking of a badly-tuned gitar string. They all turned and stared at him. After a moment, Miss Granger smiled.

"I believe he favors that plan," she said in her precise voice. "But Trevor, it will be colder sooner: Scotland is a fair distance north, you know."

He rolled his eyes her direction and uttered a two-syllable sound.

"Well, that's you told!" laughed Mr Thomas, and all of them laughed, including Neville, who thought that this might be the happiest he'd ever been. After a little more conversation, permission had been granted to everyone for the use of first names, which was even better.

* * *

The Toad was much more comfortable now. His tadpole had broad and soft arm-struts: he was unlikely to slide off, and there was no pressure on his delicate gut, and he had an amazing view.

The mist in this hollow was pleasant now; all the tadpoles were exchanging interest, and cheer, and association. Their soundings were wholly incomprehensible, of course - made with their jaws open, which struck the Toad as probably uncomfortable and definitely dangerous, but each Way to its Wanderer. They seemed to address him from time to time, with mists tasting of concern and care, so he thrummed at them to show attention, to their evident approval.

His tadpole was far more comfortable now than it had been earlier with its clanmates. Bad clanmates - they seemed to be the type that would consume their own offspring, not even having enough Survival-imperative to abandon them. The Toad would have to watch the other Adults of his tadpole's species.

Because if this tadpole was concerned with his survival, as abruptly and hostilely as they had met, then the Toad would concern himself with the tadpole's survival.

He cast his eyes around at the other tads in the hollow. The ones who had been in the hollow earlier had shifted their association-acts, and what has shifted once can shift again. But the tadpole who had been in the path beside the hollow - that one had intended to help instantly. It had helped. And it was now continuing association and help.

That boded well. The Toad approved.

 


	3. Fit the Third

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,  
> As he landed his crew with care;  
> Supporting each man on the top of the tide  
> By a finger entwined in his hair.
> 
> "Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:  
>  That alone should encourage the crew.  
>  Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:  
>  What I tell you three times is true."

Trevor-the-wizard -umm, _Terry_ \- and Seamus had brought ham or beef sandwiches with apples, and Miss Hermione had a marvelous Muggle box with divisions holding slices of cheese, and what she said was roasted turkey, and tiny spinach leaves, and crackers, together with grapes - seedless, she said! and slivers of carrot, and a soft biscuit made the American way, with oats and raisins. Dean had a pasty in an heirloom inlaid box with a stasis charm and a heating rune, that Miss Hermione exclaimed over.

Neville brought out his picnic basket and resized it with a tap ... all right, four taps on the resizing spot with his dad's wand. This led to a general discussion on how one got a wand, while he opened it up and shared around his chilled pumpkin juice and pieces of cantaloupe, cold chicken pieces and pasta salad to the group feast.

Trevor-the-Toad was offered bits and bobs, and accepted a curl of pasta and several bits of ham. The boys laughed, and Miss Hermione smiled, to watch him shoot out his sticky pink tongue and gulp his prize all in the same second.

Miss Hermione had a crease in her smooth brow, though, and as she finished her luncheon, brought up the wands again.

"So Terry and Seamus and I all purchased our wands from Ollivander, who assured us that the wand chooses the wizard. But you and Dean both have family wands."

Dean answered, "Our family is old, but not Ancient of course, and we've kept almost everyone's wand. I was told to work my way through the chest, and my ..." he counted fingers on both hands "third cousin five times removed, her wand worked pretty well for me. My family, or rather all the mothers in my family back only Merlin knows how many generations, don't hold with buying a wand for a child, because in my family three children out of ten break their wands by their fourth year." All of the rest of them, including Neville, burst out with a horrified _ooooo._ "So my mum will take me to Ollivander's summer before my fifth year, if my wand makes it that long."

Everyone looked at their wands with wide eyes, and nodded.

And then they looked at Neville.

 _My parents are heroes_ , he thought, and said "My Gran wanted me to use my father's wand as a tribute to him."

Terry and Dean froze, and eased back in their seats. Seamus and Miss Hermione tilted their heads and frowned in puzzlement, but also caught sight of the other two.

"If you don't want to, you don't have to say any more," Miss Hermione said with a sort of fervent kindness. "But I would be honored to hear about it."

Neville looked at her and at the others, and not one of them looked anything like any member of his family. So he took a breath and told them.

* * *

The Toad had begun thoroughly to enjoy his situation. The tads had brought food with them, which was surprising on the face of it, but accorded with the skills of their species and their food requirements. Nothing available in _this_ hollow was edible to any but Insects or Rodents.

More surprising was their effort to share food with each other and with him. In his experience, that was an adult endeavor. Granted, he hadn't really had any sight of Wixen before, but there were songs and stories along the Stream and in the Meadow, so he had some knowledge. But these tads fed each other with high cheer - and they offered food to him as well. Some of it seemed edible to a Toad, and proved so, to their mutual satisfaction.

They ate like mammals generally did, a great lot at once with no time to digest along the way, and conversed in their open-jawed fashion - sometimes at the same time. It was messy and dangerous and, if he was matching up the mist and the soundings correctly, also disgusting. He agreed. There is a time to eat and a time to sound and they are _different_.

But the tads stashed their food-packages away and kept up their soundings, and the mist tasted of curiosity and affection  ... and then his tadpole exuded a whole-skin mist of sorrow, discomfort and humiliation,  matched slowly with feels-with sorrow and discomfort from one tad after the other.

The Toad scooted over to touch skin with his tad. The youngster began sounding, a whole story it seemed like, and the feels-with mist in the hollow became dense. The hall-tad reached to touch skin as well.

And his tad stopped sounding, and brought out a branch to display to the others. They bent their great heads down toward it, and lifted them again to eye his tad. There was a general sound, with an exhalation of feels-with sorrow, and his tad tucked the branch back away, all the humiliation gone from his skin.

And then there was a great cracking from the side of the hollow, which fell open. There were other tadpoles beyond it.

* * *

Hermione's blood was already up - poor Neville, what a way to lose and not-lose your parents, and his uncle AND his Gran sounded like perfect nightmares, and then to do THIS to him in terms of his wand. And she had not heard a word from him about being a Sentinel, or training, or a guide search or anything. How stupid was she, not to have investigated Sentinel and Guide information before enrolling!

So when the door crashed open, almost by reflex she was on her feet in the First Defensive Stance in the middle of the doorway, the untrained boys behind her.

"How rude!" she shouted at once, taking the Aggressive Step. Like Sense-i had told her would happen, the three boys on the other side backed up with their eyes wide. "Were you raised in a chicken coop? Did you never get taught to knock? _Do you have a defect?_ Go away, and pray we get introduced later by someone with some manners!" The boys had continued to back up, so she closed the door and threw the latch.

And stood against it, with her arms wide, and caught sight of the four boys, eyes also wide.

"Miss Hermione," said Neville cautiously, "I believe you had not yet met Draco Malfoy?"

The name caught her attention from _Recent History of the Wizarding World_. She reviewed the information swiftly.

"Would his father be Lucius Malfoy, the wizard who had claimed he was under the Imperious when he took the Dark Mark from Voldemort aka He Who Must Not Be Named? Still active in the Wizengamot and influential in the Ministry for Magic?" Neville was nodding. "Family is a member of the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight, seat is in Wiltshire, wife Narcissa Malfoy is a leader of society, wealth unknown but assumed to be great due to expenditures?"

Neville and Dean were nodding right along with her, while Terry and Seamus were looking back and forth at everyone.

"So he has _less_ than no excuse!" Hermione stormed. "His parents are all _about_ the use of manners and courtesy in the pursuit of their political and social goals! Did they abandon him to be raised by feral _walruses_?"

Evidently that did it. All of the boys burst into astonished laughter, Neville doubling over, Seamus and Dean sliding off their bench, Terry kicking his feet in mid-air. Hermione caught Trevor-the-Toad, who had made a mad leap for safety, and placed him on her left arm while she raised an eyebrow at the loony bin she was suddenly guarding.

Trevor-the-Toad made a deep double tone. Hermione agreed completely.


	4. Fit the Fourth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "His form is ungainly—his intellect small—"  
> (So the Bellman would often remark)  
> "But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,  
> Is the thing that one needs with a Snark."

"All right, boys," Hermione said, calling on her hero Black Widow for the right attitude. "I have an important question for you. Does the Wizarding world know about Sentinels and Guides?"

Seamus' head whipped toward her, and back to Dean and Neville. He knew about them, probably had someone close who was one or t'other. Terry also knew, which was just what she expected: Sentinels and Guides were reasonably common, certainly so in the general understanding, and tests were run in primary school to find sports in families that weren't traditional.

Dean and Neville looked puzzled.

Oboy.

Hermione cast the first-level locking spell, appropriate for first years to try and completely open to prefects and adults, but likely to protect them from the feral walruses.

"I am about to be very upset. If you don't know anything because you haven't been told, then you have been denied access to your heritage as humans by the adults in your lives. I have been in training for my Guide attributes since I was identified at the age of three.

"If you don't know anything because the wizarding world doesn't know about Sentinels, then there is a wide-spread conspiracy to suppress the knowledge, because muggle-borns come into this world every year, and we all know about it."

She petted Trevor-the-toad, who had dried out nicely and who didn't object.

"I don't like the suppression of knowledge."

Seamus made a weird face, and said "No, really?" which made everyone laugh.

"I have an Uncle who is a Sentinel, he came online when he was seventeen on a hiking tour of Switzerland, he said it was a right cat-a-strofe. What with speaking French but finding himself in the German-speaking part of the country. Said he didn't know it had happened til the train went by two valleys over."

Hermione and Terry shook their heads and laughed in sympathy.

"How long did it take to find his Guide?" Terry asked.

"Just until he and his best friend both got back from hols. He was dead lucky."

"I'll say!"

Neville broke in, which Hermione was very proud of him for.

"You mean to say that either Dean or myself is a Sentinel or a Guide."

"You are, Neville. I identified you in the hall. That's how you found Trevor-the-Toad."

He nodded. "That's why you helped me."

She smiled at him. "I would have helped you regardless, but it would have taken us a lot longer to find him."

Neville's shoulders relaxed and he smiled back at her.

"So tell us about them," demanded Dean, and Seamus, Terry and Hermione spent the next hour doing just that.

* * *

"I like the quiet," Neville said softly when they were done. "I like being outside because the cousins rarely come there, but Uncle Algie does. I usually hear him coming, though. I'm just too clumsy to avoid him all the time."

Miss Hermione frowned at him, but not like she was disappointed. She looked like she was solving a mystery.

" _A Muggle's Introduction To The Wizarding World_ states that motorized traffic is unheard of, and that in places where Wizarding areas are close to Muggle areas, like Diagon Alley in London, there are ancient sound-cancelling enchantments that prevent noise from bleeding over. Is that true?"

Dean nodded, and added "King's Cross might actually be the biggest crowd Neville's ever been exposed to."

Neville nodded fervently.

"Well," said the Merlin-sent witch, "do you want to test it out and see?"

Neville was quaking with the conflict between his own worthlessness and incompetence, and Miss Hermione's faith in him.

"Yes."

What followed was the most weird and interesting and successful set of things he had ever done, and that included working in his Gran's greenhouses. He sniffed everyone's hand, and closed his eyes while they went out in the corridor, and when they came back in, he identified them just by their smell. He listened carefully while they whispered to each other, until he could tell what they were saying like clear speech even when they couldn't hear each other.

Then they had him try to listen in on the other compartments, which worked but was embarrassing.

Miss Hermione called a halt to the exercises then, saying that he would stress himself if they continued. She had him pull his hearing in, until he was hearing a shout as a whisper, and pull in his sense of smell until he couldn't smell anything. Then he put them back to normal, and everyone whooped in satisfaction.

"You are special, Neville Longbottom of Longbottom Manor, and not because your parents are heroes. You are special because of yourself and your own abilities. Could I teach you what I know?" asked Miss Hermione, filling him with another rush of astounded delight.

"I ... yes, please, I would be honored, thank you," and the other boys were laughing again but it was so different from the cousins. They were laughing with him, in glee at his good fortune.

He could tell.

* * *

There were no more JumpNow! interruptions, for which the Toad was profoundly grateful. The tadpoles began to sound and play games, and after a while the Toad felt secure enough to return to his own tad. He slept some, and woke to find all the tads pulling off the layers of extra skins and replacing them with others.

The ground-swimming hollows slowed, and came to a stop.

The hall-tad sounded at his tadpole, made some adjustments to his new skins, and then sounded at the Toad. It carefully picked him up, and settled him in _side_ his tad's new skins - like a very snug hollow, well padded, just his size. The Toad adjusted himself, and sounded back at the tads, just to let them know he was comfortable.

The notes of the tadpoles' soundings were like those that had tasted of cheer and sharing, earlier. They moved, and the Toad was profoundly glad for his secure space. The jerky motion of Wixen walking on two legs gave way to the smooth feel of lily-pads floating down the stream.

There was fresh air, and the sound of a wide body of water, like the ponds he had heard of. The smell of shoreline overwhelmed the skins' smells of his tad's worry and loneliness. At a distance he could hear a Giant Squid, and Merfolk, and Grindylows, all famed in song around the stream back home. This was definitely an interesting place for a Toad to be. Perhaps an expedition might be made, later. The tads were quieter than they had been, but there were soundings of surprise now and again. The hall-tad sounded softly to his own. His tad was smelling more and more of confidence and competence.

The tads - his own, and the others from the ground-swimming hollows, climbed off their lily-pads, and walked a ways more in cool dampness. Adult soundings mixed in with wood-thumps, and ceased.

They were all still. The Toad climbed up his tad, and took his place on those wide arm-struts again.

The wood section of the stone walls cracked open, and all of the Wixen tads walked through.


	5. Fit the Fifth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He served out some grog with a liberal hand,  
> And bade them sit down on the beach:  
> And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,  
> As he stood and delivered his speech.
> 
> "Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"  
>  (They were all of them fond of quotations:  
>  So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,  
>  While he served out additional rations).

Hermione couldn't keep her thoughts inside her head again. She talked about the ghosts, she talked about the ceiling of the Great Hall, she reminded Neville to go as slow as he wanted and not to let anyone spook him –

He put his hand on her arm, and smiled at her.

"Miss Hermione," he whispered, "you will show me the way, and I won't be afraid."

Well. Of course then she had to take a deep breath and nod, and settle herself. She smiled at Trevor-the-Toad and petted his head once, and looked to the front of the Hall.

The Deputy Headmistress had placed a bent and ragged pointed hat with a brim on the top of a stool.

It began to sing. Hermione listened carefully to the words, and wished for her notebook and pen, wondering if it were the same song every year - if it were a Charmed hat, or if it were one of the many types of unexpected People that were common to the magical world. She wondered if this whole business of Houses was actually a good idea, or if it caused elitist problems. She wondered what specifications it used to Sort children, and what sort of specifications she, as a Guide In Training, might most benefit from - and which she might most benefit others with.

Terry went first of their group, and found himself in Ravenclaw. She joined the clapping and cheering, as did the other boys: how wonderful, to find oneself in the scholarly house in a school!

Seamus was next, after some intervening children, and wound up with the Gryffindors, who were a truly rowdy bunch. He waved wildly back at them and over at Terry, and grabbed a seat down with the other new students.

Anthony Goldstein went to Ravenclaw fairly quickly, and then a large young man named Goyle was sent off to Slytherin nearly instantly, and then Hermione squared her shoulders, smiled at Neville, and submitted herself to the Hat.

"Oh my," a deep voice sounded in her head while the crown of the Hat blocked out her sight. "It has been a while since I sorted a Guide."

"Yes," Hermione answered, "and I have a few ... hundred questions about that. But first, do you have a protocol for Sorting Guides? Have you had any Sentinels to Sort? Is there training for them here? Do you have to do something different for them if they already have their Guides, or if they are not Awake yet, or do -"

"I take it you already have a Sentinel to protect, even if - you are unsure that he _is_ actually yours, aren't you?"

"Well, we only just met you know, and we _are_ both eleven. I'll be 12 shortly, but still, that is quite young for taking possession of each other. And he definitely needs defending, _oh my god_ he needs to be taken from his family and hidden away somewhere they can't get to him. But I know we are taking up a lot of time, so just tell me about the Houses that Guides and Sentinels need to go into."

"Guides always need to be balanced. You must have all four feet on the ground. Therefore, I am placing you in ... GRYFFINDOR!"

Hermione almost held on to the brim to get her other questions answered, but submitted to the rhythm of the ceremony, and ran for the red-trimmed table, waving at Trevor-the-Wizard - _Terry!_ \- and at Neville and Trevor-the-Toad before sitting down beside Seamus and being greeted by her new Housemates.

Greengrass to Slytherin, Jones to Hufflepuff, and Li to Ravenclaw. Hermione was about to bounce out of her seat, and Seamus was patting her hands and laughing at her a little, when _finally_ it was Neville's turn to come up to the Hat.

Hermione whistled softly, and his eyes tracked to her. She gave him a huge smile, and patted her own left shoulder - where Trevor-the-Toad was sitting on Neville - and Neville grinned back at her, took a deep breath, and walked steadily up to the stool.

The Hat had barely touched his head when it shouted GRYFFINDOR! and Hermione's mouth fell open. Seamus' mouth fell open. Across the Hufflepuffs and the middle aisle from them, Terry's mouth fell open. Their eyes met, and their arms shot into the air, and they all three shouted " _SCORE_ " to the bafflement of the rest of the school.

Neville took a step in their direction, but then remembered to take off the Hat, shared a delighted grin with Terry, and pelted toward the Gryffindor table, seizing a seat opposite Hermione and Seamus.

" _So. Wonderful!_ " Hermione whispered, among the rest of the applause.

* * *

His tad was finally sitting down and not moving much, and the hall-tad was able to locate some water to put in a small lily-pad on the flat tree-trunk between them. The Toad launched himself down to the tree-trunk, quenched his thirst, and then crawled into the lily-pad to re-hydrate his skin. The air here in this vast cave was drier than might be expected, with a fair amount of movement. The knot of tadpoles near his all seemed cheerful and as noisy as Geese. The Wixen aged as they sat further and further down the tree-trunk, until they seemed fully-mature, and there were some truly elder Wixen at a separate trunk that he could barely see.

There was a bitter taste to the air.

There were several different bitter tastes in the air, coming from different locations all far from his own knot of tads and the ones at the next tree-trunk over. They were nearly lost in the vast swirl of sweet welcome and homecoming and recognition, the nutty streams of adventure and exploration, and the clean bite of ancient stone.

Five more tads joined them before there was a long deep thrum from the back of the cave, and then suddenly Wixen food appeared on the table, with a faint whiff of House-Elf magic.

Again the tads shared food with him, a wider variety in the style of Wixen. He was happy, ate lightly, and hoped, in the back of his skull where it wouldn't be an insult, that he could later have some plain food: Insects, the occasional Rodent, Minnows and such, comfortingly live and wriggling, so it was demonstrably fresh. A Toad was not a carrion-eater, and he could not help but be a little suspicious of the Wixen food. But he knew House-Elves were also not carrion-eaters, and he had to trust them to feed their Wixen accordingly.

Then the oldest of the Wixen at the top tree-trunk rose, fur as white as the muzzle of an ancient fox, and thrummed and sounded emphatically. And then, after a brief pause, the entire Sweep of Wixen, from the knots of tads up through the school of wisen, began thrumming together, Night-Song melodious and contravocal, each singing in their own style all at once. The Toad was moved to join in, sounding at length, his throat belling with his own melody.

As Night-Song does, it died out, a pair of adolescent Wixen sounding the last few notes. And then the older adolescents rose, gathered together groups of adolescents and tads, and began escorting them away. His tad held out hands to him, and he used them to scramble back up to his arm-struts.

Height was wonderful.

* * *

Neville puffed a bit as he followed the group up the stairs, and up the stairs, and further up the stairs. He knew he was clumsy, and he knew he was a pudding-bag, and he knew that he wasn't fit. That he was unfit.

For perhaps the first time in his life, this did not drive him to despair. The ebullient Miss Brown and the truly lovely Miss Patil were also puffing, just a bit, and so was the infamous Mr Harry Potter.

Miss Hermione was not, of course, and neither were Seamus nor Dean. Miss Hermione had explained it, though, which none of the cousins ever had: it was conditioning, and training. Which he had never been given. And if he was clumsy, why, his Uncle had made it his vocation in life to keep him _off_ -balance.

She had promised to train him. She had promised like -  like -

Like someone who had found a never-used and perfectly forged war sword that was all rust and dirt. Like she was vastly offended, and _not at him_.

She and Seamus and Terry had told him stories of Sentinels. And they had told him that he was certainly going to become heroic exactly as every other Sentinel did, although his focus of territory and tribe would be unique to him, and he would naturally acquire the correct training for it. And they had all promised, even Dean, who like him was hearing all this for the first time, to help him get physical conditioning so that he could find his balance, and his wind, and his confidence.

So that he could do what he was born to do. Not as the son of his father, who would never see him to be proud of a son walking in his shoes. Not as a wizard, who would get what training every other wizard would get, to use according to his suspect strength and dubiously-formed morals.

But as a Sentinel, standing between his Tribe and danger, between his Tribe and wickedness, using the senses given him by Nature Herself in order to Protect.

He couldn't wait.


	6. Fit the Sixth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again  
> The five unmistakable marks  
> By which you may know, wheresoever you go,  
> The warranted genuine Snarks.
> 
>  
> 
> "Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,  
> Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:  
> Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,  
> With a flavour of Will-o'-the-wisp.

The mountain was enormous, and hollow right through. The Toad thoroughly distrusted the entire cave system, although it was well-lighted and the passageways large. There was too much trembling under his tad's feet, ledges after ledges to climb, always a risk of stumbling and falling down a lethal distance, and entirely too much exercise for mammals after one of their huge meals. He had been told that Wixen came in several solid colors, but that you had to watch for those colors to change: something horrible might happen just after that. His tad seemed to be changing color from evening primrose to birch, and its respiration was becoming more audible. This was the case with several others as well.

Finally they reached a flat passage with no ledges. The Toad tried to breathe loudly and evenly, and his tadpole actually began to breathe with him. Its colors abruptly changed to plum for a few minutes, but then came back to its normal primrose, so the Toad was counting it as well done.

They entered a hidden cavern, smelling of stone and smoke and the musty musky odors of adolescent mammals in their own den. It had several attached chambers, and the Toad noted that his own knot of tads did not smell like any of them, but that the chamber they were sent to had no previous musk within it. This chamber had personal hollows within it, shrouded as though by grass fronds with the Wixen-made materials.

His tad carefully lifted him and placed him in one of the hollows, then leapt away, probably after something to make this sleeping-hollow more comfortable. The Toad crawled around the surface, noting the distance to the ground, noting the tads that had come with them and another two who had sat at the tree-trunk with them. One had an Owl with it, who looked at him with predator eyes but a companion's attitude, and then tended to her own chick. The other had a Rodent of the Rat line, who looked ill and who stumbled into a curl and went to sleep. His pup looked at him and exuded disgust and distress, which was curious. The chick, on the other hand, might as well have tucked itself under the Owl's wing, and she looked prepared to give it a try, regardless of the fact that her chick was as much larger than her as his tad was than him.

His tad came back at this point with a rigid lily-pad, like the hall-tad had found before, filled with water, which it placed on the stump beside the sleeping hollow. It dashed back out the entrance, returning almost at once with ... something larger than the lily-pad. Deep. With leaf-litter and loose soil in it. It was solid around the sides, and had long grasses growing out of the top, and was short enough on one side to crawl into and out of.

It smelled lovely and alive. His tad placed it, too, on the stump.

The Toad looked at it in astonishment, and then turned to his tad, and sounded and thrummed in deep approval. His tad opened its jaws and exuded delight and competence.

The Toad crawled into his hollow, that his tad had prepared for him, that was moist and comfortable and shadowed and easy to see out of. He arranged the soil and fluffed the leaf-litter and settled the grasses to hang just so, while his tad stripped off everything down to its primrose hide, and then put on a single light layer that looked much more comfortable than the earlier layers, sounding all the while.

The Toad was beginning to separate out the soundings, and suspected that his tad had _named_ him. He planned on finding out which sounding referred to him, and on learning the soundings of the Wixen. He would be a companion to his tad like the Owl was a companion to her chick. That would require more knowledge than he could currently gather.

Then his tad crawled into its own sleeping hollow, sounded again, and fell asleep.

It had been a long and tiring day, but everything was still now, and quiet. The Toad settled himself, and followed his tad into sleep.

* * *

Shower: taken. Hermione was unutterably grateful for the little waterproof case her father had given her to take her clothes and things to the shower with her. He had lived in dorms at uni, and had had his suspicions about group showers. Not that the other girls were - as yet, anyway - prone to water fights, but the mist from all the showers going at the same time tended to settle on every surface.

Teeth: clean _before_ the shower, hair brushed _after_ getting dressed. She was tangle-free, anyway, and ignored the frizz as she had done for years. It was hers, it was natural, and she had conceived a horror of chemical straighteners the one time she and her family had made the experiment.

Books: packed carefully in her bookbag, titles up so she could tell which one to grab as needed. She was not impressed with this business of getting one's schedule the first day of classes. At least her parents had felt the same way, and had approved the featherlight charm and the basic expansion charm on her bag, so that she wouldn't hurt her back.

Quills and ink in their own protective boxes in the dedicated front pocket of her bookbag. Note-parchments in the side pockets, with the spelled boxes ready at the top to have the class written in. The shopkeeper at Flourish and Blotts had explained that the charmed box would slide down with the scroll as she cut the top off, and become permanent at the top of the notes she cut off. Her mother had nodded firmly: if they weren't going to have notebooks, this was an adequate substitution. She had warned Hermione to date each day's notes as well, and they had discussed storage for them. The shopkeeper hadn't understood that particular problem. Perhaps she could speak with a Prefect from Ravenclaw; they should have come up with a solution. Terry would be able to introduce her.

The other girls had already gone down to breakfast, but the boys hadn't shown their faces as yet, and she wanted to walk down with Neville. He had seemed fine with all the noise last night, which was delightful, but she was ... concerned. She had offered to train him, and she felt responsible.

Very well then. School uniform on, tie tied correctly -- again, thank you Father! Thin wool stockings for the beginning of the year, thank you Mother, and shoes tied neatly, and double-knotted after taking all those stairs. That moved. Oh joy. Robe -

_There_ were the boys! All of them, Dean and Seamus, the boy named Harry Potter, a redhead and - there was Neville! and Trevor-the-Toad! Hermione leapt to her feet, smiling her face off just like Seamus and Dean and Neville, almost ready to hug them, but the presence of the other two inhibited her.

"Come on, then, Potter, I'm starving," uttered the redhead, not pausing in his plunge from the stairs to the door. Hermione stared after him, and turned her head slowly to look at Neville, who had a light expression of resignation on the face he turned to her. Seamus and Dean were grinning and shaking their heads. Mr Potter looked back at them and waved slightly, then plunged after his ... friend, one would suppose.

Seamus uttered in a BBC voice, "Shall we?" with a wave toward the door, and they all laughed and headed to breakfast, calling greetings to Terry as he passed in a flight of Ravenclaws.

They compared dorm rooms and showers, the boys jealous of her shower-case and brainstorming on what they could use to the same end. Neville told them about the Prefects and their creation of a preliminary habitat for Trevor-the-Toad. One of them had urged Neville to speak with their Head of House, the redoubtable Professor McGonagall, about a good way of providing for Trevor's nutritional needs. 

"Here comes the walruses," Dean said, which sent them into hysterics. Neville and Hermione turned to see Mr Malfoy, the boy named Goyle, and the other large boy swaggering toward them, Mr Malfoy's malicious eyes fixed not on Neville but on Mr Potter. No, this _would_ not do.

"Neville, introduce us formally," Hermione hissed at him, her mouth fixed in what her sense-i called a "fighting grin." He stared at her and gulped, but then nodded firmly, and they both rose and intercepted the approaching trio. Mr Malfoy turned to them and opened his mouth, but Neville spoke first.

"Miss Hermione Granger, I would like to introduce to you our classmate Mr Draco Malfoy. Mr Malfoy, this is Miss Granger. You may remember each other from the Hogwarts Express. Mr Malfoy's Father is in the Wizengamot and on the Board of Governors here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Miss Granger's parents are respected Oral Healers in London." He raised his voice to continue over Mr Malfoy's attempts to speak. Hermione was unutterably impressed by him.

"It is a pleasure to meet you formally," she continued right at Neville's last word, and nodding regally to Draco Malfoy. "Would you introduce us to your companions?"

Mr Malfoy gaped at them, but Hermione noticed that the other two boys were looking at them with interest. She was also aware that the entire Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables around them were silent and attentive.

Malfoy could respond with an introduction, a retreat, or an insult. Either of the latter would lose him regard, granted among the two Houses that House Slytherin tended to look down upon, but Hermione had noted several offspring of other members of the Wizengamot, among them some-time allies of Lord Malfoy on one piece of legislation or another.

She had done her homework _thoroughly_.

Looking very much like someone having just consumed unsweetened lemonade, Mr Malfoy growled, "Miss Hermione Granger, Mr Neville Longbottom, allow me to introduce Mr Gregory Goyle and Mr Vincent Crabbe. Our families have been allies and friends for generations."

With tactical malice, Hermione gave her most charming smile to Mr Goyle and said, "I noticed your Sorting was very swift, Mr Goyle. It is a wonderful thing to know one's self so well that an artifact like the Sorting Hat is in complete agreement with you."

"Th-thank you, Miss Granger," the large boy uttered with a puzzled crease to his wide forehead and a tentative smile on his face. "I thought you was never going to get Sorted."

"Oh, I had questions for the Hat, and it was trying not to answer me," she replied with what her sense-i had assured her was a roguish grin, and turned to the rounder-faced Mr Crabbe. "I am so sorry I missed your Sorting, as early in the line as it was. I'm afraid I was still rather astonished by the ceiling." Almost involuntarily, the entire group, including the people most near them at the two tables, looked up to see clouds scudding swiftly across a sapphire sky.

"It's really pretty," responded Mr Crabbe. "Mum's Solar at home has a center panel like it."

"Magic is wonderful," Hermione responded firmly. "Mr Malfoy, your friends are delightful. I shan't detain you any longer, but I thank you for coming over for the introductions."

With that, she and Neville gave sunny smiles to the three boys, and regained their seats. Behind them, she could hear the boys hesitating, and then leaving. She held her finger up to the others, turned to Neville, and said quietly, "Can you still hear their footsteps?" He cast his eyes to the left, and cocked his head, and waited. Then he grinned at her and said "Not anymore."

The entire table burst into laughter, but before they could discuss the issue, Professor McGonagall was among them with their schedules.

This was more like it.

* * *

Neville had been expecting high drama and humiliation in their first class considering his near-squib status, with note-taking being a right wash, and him not expecting to achieve anything with his father's wand. But Miss Hermione listened to his fears on their way to class, and nodded firmly.

"I've taken notes in class for years, so I know how to do it. Were you taught at home?" He nodded in pained memory, and she turned to the others. Dean had also been taught at home, while Seamus had attended Muggle prior-to-school classes, which they called Primary School. "Very well," she decided. "Seamus and I will take proper notes. You two will listen carefully and write down each question that you have, as quickly as possible - don't worry about spelling. Then afterwards we will compare what we have."

"Aye Cap'n," Seamus snapped in a Cockney accent, to Neville and Dean's deep delight and making Miss Hermione turn bright red.

Class turned into more of a mummery than a tragedy, though, with Mr Potter and Mr Weasley running in at the last moment, and the class cat turning into the Professor. The note-taking went well, Neville thought, as he only had to write down what he didn't understand, which left him more time to listen. And then it was time to examine needle and matchstick, and make the latter match the former. Captain and Crew put their heads together.

"So we will take it in turn, both as an exercise in transfiguration, which the Professor expects none of us to master today, and then also as a comparison of wands. I've made a table, see? with each wand's owner and its materials. I will write down my experiences with each wand. Copy the table, and then we will each try with our own wands, and then pass them around. If we don't finish in class, I am sure we will be able to continue during homework."

As he had expected, Neville's father's wand needed a whole lot of effort for very little return. At about five minutes, though, the Crew wrote down their thoughts and passed around their wands.

Every single other wand worked better for him.

His father's wand actually worked fairly well for Dean.

Miss Hermione put up her hand and called the Professor to their pair of tables.

Professor McGonagall listened with an austere expression that reminded Neville of Gran, but the faint disapproval vanished, to be replaced with concern and with an expression he was growing accustomed to seeing on his friend's face: acknowledgement of an issue and calculation as to its solution. She nodded, just like Miss Hermione.

"Continue with your experiment, if it interests all of you. Prepare to write twelve to fifteen inches of parchment on your results for our fifth class period as a joint assignment. Take five points to Gryffindor for problem solving, and another three each for working together."

Neville smiled again. Never in his life could he remember smiling as much as he had in the last two days.


	7. Fit the Seventh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'You may seek it with thimbles—and seek it with care;  
> You may hunt it with forks and hope;  
> You may threaten its life with a railway-share;  
> You may charm it with smiles and soap—'

Hermione had the boys help her drag the furniture out of a corner of the common room. She moved across the area in a single kata to make sure that there was enough space, and then she waved the three boys into it. She forcefully ignored all the other Gryffindors who were watching.

"Now Neville, the first thing is to show you how to stand. Put your left foot here, good, and then set your right foot there." She held on to his shoulders, and nudged each foot with one of her feet, and got him settled.

Trevor-the-toad hopped off of Neville's shoulder, and took up position on a nearby chair. Hermione moved around Neville, tapping and pulling his body into position, and grinned at him.

"Now, hold your head up, and look straight at me, good, and smile like you mean it." Neville followed her instructions, and grinned at her, and everyone whooped and laughed.

They spent the rest of the evening showing Neville how to shift his weight in a way that was solid, and would keep him from falling off of his own feet. At the end of the session, Hermione told him what she would do, and then nudged him slightly, each time helping him keep his balance. He would resettle himself and they would try it again, and by the end of the evening, he was able to stand fast as any tree.

"Practice that each time you have to stand still. Understand and accept that you will look silly for a while, and don't answer people who ask you what you are doing. One of us will talk to them." She smiled brightly back at his glow of confident trust. "Can you do that?"

"Remind me if I forget, Miss Hermione, because I will practice!"

"Bed," pronounced Dean hopefully, wrapping an arm around Neville's shoulders while Seamus held out a palm to Trevor-the-toad. After a moment's examination, the toad crawled carefully onto his hand, and Seamus held him up to Neville's shoulder. Such trust, so soon after the toad's kidnapping, Hermione was delighted, but she drew the boys into a huddle.

"We're going to practice hearing tonight," she said softly. "Once we've settled into bed, Dean and Seamus, say Neville's name and then tell him something as softly as you can. Neville, if you hear them, clear your throat. I will do the same, and you can tell me in the morning if you heard me."

"Secret communications," Dean chirped excitedly. "How about the other direction though?"

"Well," she said slowly, "if you hear each other, you clear your throat. Then you'll know you have to get softer. Meanwhile I'll think about it." The boys grinned wildly, but Neville looked over Dean's shoulder.

"Inntr'estin' stuff," drawled one voice.

"But ickle firsties must leave things," answered an identical voice.

"As they find'em," finished the first.

Hermione refused to be embarrassed, and pulled the older twins into helping replace the furniture.

* * *

"So what was that all about?" asked Mr Weasley as they climbed to their room.

Neville looked at him, but Dean answered. "Granger has an idea that she can teach a Muggle martial art to someone who has never fought. I have boy neighbors at home, Finnegan has brothers, but Longbottom is an only child with no neighbors."

"So he's the perfect Guinea Pig," Seamus chimed in. Mr Potter nodded, but the rest of the boys looked at him.

"Experimental subject," he clarified, and they said "Ohhh" in understanding.

"Balance is the first step," Neville added, "and she tells me that falling is the next."

"Falling?" Weasley gasped in disbelief, but Dean nodded earnestly and the other three groaned in pained agreement.

"I get to learn to stand without falling off my feet first, though," Neville finished, tying his houserobe belt and putting Trevor-the-toad back on his shoulder. This was an unbelievable and exciting situation: he had _allies_ who were helping him _not get humiliated_. He smiled at them with gratitude, and headed for the showers. Trevor-the-toad would like the mist and the room to explore. And he had a Sentinel exercise to look forward to.

* * *

!rribrr seemed to be the sounding that the tadpoles were addressing him with. The toad would have to respond to it and see if he were correct. The main chamber of this section of the cave system was warm and filled with happiness and watchfulness and a few courting-mists from the older Wixen. As one would expect. The sleeping chamber for his set of the youngest tadpoles was full of loneliness and reaching-to-acquaintance, and glee from his own tad, and protectiveness from the others, which was gratifying.

Others were addressing his tad as Nehhbell. Pleased with his progress in working out Wixen soundings, !rribrr hopped from Nehhbell's hand onto the stone floor of what turned out to be a waterfall cavern.

This, now, was more like it. Nehhbell stripped down again and dunked itself under one of the streams of warm water, rubbing itself with something that foamed like a pool under an outside waterfall but smelled of leaves and flowers. Its mists of wariness and exertion and relief dissolved away.

!rribrr judged that the tad had things under control and went happily hopping around the cavern, splashing in the shallow pools and dodging in and out of the waterfall spray. He bounced off of his tad's foot just to hear it croak, and it ran after him with yelps and his name, and slipped and fell on its haunches, cackling like a deranged crow. !rribrr bounced off its leg, off its arm-strut, and onto its wet head-fur, and promptly slid off onto the stone, bouncing back around his tad in great orbits.

Nehhbell gradually caught its breath, stopped the waterfalls?!? and dried itself, dressing in the sleeping-skin it wore last night, with a warmer one on top. It held out a hand, and !rribrr climbed to his spot for the trip to the sleeping chamber and his own hollow.

His tad was now safe from its clanmates. It had poolmates now, and that included !rribrr and the other companions. There might be competitors here; there might be predators. But the tad was already doing better.

!rribrr wiggled in satisfaction.


End file.
